And there is s big difference between a school with over 80% of students Catholic (ND) and 50% Catholic (Georgetown).
@intparent Yeah I have looked into UVA and UNC but they are too far for me. Also I have heard UVA includes a lot of loans in its packages and I would have to apply for business junior year.
I’ll look more into ND. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I thought.
You might want to look at Colgate for a low reach school. They don’t have a finance major but do offer economics and have very strong career placement in the finance world.
Chiming in on the Catholic college debate- ND ‘feels’ more Catholic to some for a variety of reasons including, only having single sex dorms, chapels in each residence hall, more prevalent religious symbols on campus/in buildings and a higher percentage of Catholic students vs some other Catholic colleges.
@Classof2017 for business Lehigh is a reach, it’s a very competitive admit.
If you qualify for Presidential scholarship at Temple (full tuition), what will it take for a school to win versus Temple?
@ClarinetDad16
For Lehigh, the OPs SAT score is well above the mid 50 mark, so it should be a solid match
I second @Shrimpburrito suggestion of Northeastern. Their co-op program is interesting and gives you resume-building experience. You might also consider American University and Fordham. Fordham’s proximity to NYC gives you lots of internship opportunities. It sounds like you want to stay in the NE - is that correct? What’s your home state? Will you apply to flagship?
@wisteria100 perhaps I was not clear. The College of Business & Economics at Lehigh is far more selective than the university itself.
OP, ideas for more reaches could include Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon.
Without knowing your family’s ability to pay, budget and estimated net cost at these schools we are just naming names. Your parents might just say we won’t pay $200,000 more for schools over Temple…
@ClarinetDad16 My EFC according to NPCs range from 11k to 22k. Even with full tuition that’s still around 15k/year in other costs. So I would choose another school if it’s stronger in my field or I prefer it more if the cost is around the same. I know scores aren’t everything but my test scores are right around the 75th percentile, perfect GPA, most rigorous curriculum, wnd decent ECs make Lehigh a match. I’m also Indian which might be underrepresented at Lehigh but if not I still thought I had a better chance.
@4Gulls I am in PA so Penn State/Pitt might be considered my flagships. I chose Temple for its automatic scholarships and Pitt because they might give merit if I get my scores up. The most I can get from Penn State is Schreyer’s maybe which is only 4.5k/year and I don’t think it’s worth it over Temple or Pitt with merit.
If you think you’re competitive for Schreyer I’d encourage you to apply. Pitt gave me basically nothing (in state, engineering) so PSU was comparable in price for me.
@wisteria100 I would prefer to study finance rather than Econ but I’ll look into Colgate. Isn’t it similar to Bucknell?
@bodangles I probably will apply for Schreyers but I’m not expecting much. Is it easier to get into Schreyers as an in state student?
Colgate gives much better financial aid than Bucknell and is harder to get into, quite a bit actually. Other good ones for Econ would be Hamilton, Bates, Williams, Holy Cross and Middlebury.
I don’t think they give consideration to residence. It’s mainly the essays.
Also would be nice if someone could suggest places that are near other universities too. Finding time to visit places is tough for my parents so if I could visit more than one place during one travel that would be great. Visiting Pitt and CMU, Penn and Temple soon!
Bucknell has made every effort to appear more competitive as of the last 2 years by reducing the cost and content of its own admission application. What surprises and what they don’t mind justifying is that they have eliminated part of the personal essay requirement that had been customary among the schools against which it competes. Whether other mid-ranking colleges see the logic of playing the same game is yet to be determined. But to my mind the effort to gain an increase in application numbers with the objective of Increasing yield for bragging rights is transparent. A quick google search will help frame the facts.
@markham Yeah Bucknell took away the essay requirement, the subject test requirement, and lowered its application fee IIRC. Their applicant number jumped from 7k to 10k while their average GPA and SAT scores remained the same. I know GPA and SATs aren’t everything but you would think those would increase with so many more applicants. Their acceptance rate for business is around 19% but I don’t think it’s as hard to get into as other schools with acceptance rates that low.
If you visit Penn and Temple, you can visit Bryn Mawr/Haverford/Swarthmore (depending on interests).
If you visit Cleveland, you can visit CWRU, John Carroll, Oberlin, Hiram (nice safety college!), Wooster, and if you push a bit more, Denison, Kenyon, Ohio Wesleyan.
@MYOS1634 I’d prefer slightly larger schools, at least around 5k. I think Bucknell is the lowest on my list so far at just under 4k but Bryn Mawr/Haverford/Swarthmore are much smaller. I haven’t thought about Cleveland much, but I’ll see if I can visit sometime though.
So, as of right now my list looks like
Georgetown(reach)
Lehigh(high match/reach for business?)
Boston College(high match)
Bucknell(high match)
Villanova(high match/reach for VSB?)
Penn State(low match)
Pitt(low match)
Temple(safety)
Are my reach/match/safety assessments reasonable? Seems a little heavy on the high matches/reaches but I like my safety so I feel pretty good about this list so far. I’ve only visited two so far so it’ll definitely change as I visit the rest but it looks like a nice first list to me.
I do echo looking into Northeastern if you can. The co-op experience is excellent for a business related career because it gives you hands-on experiences that many other schools won’t. Plus they have a really global network of people, so it is an exciting experience for sure
@shawnspencer I have heard a lot of great things about co-ops for engineering at Northeastern, but not much about business, particularly finance. I will have to look into it more though since its a very different experience compared to a traditional college path. It does seem interesting though and I know how helpful it can be to have experience in business beforehand so I’m definitely going to need to learn more about it.
Also, I did a quick search on some average stats for Northeastern and wow it was higher than I was expecting. I thought Northeastern would be around a match. but its probably a solid reach for me at this point.
Do apply for honors at all you can (especially the publics).
Note that a 2,500 student high school feels VERY different from a 2,500 student college. Such a college is likely to offer a choice of 1,200classes, and there will be lots of buildings, as many as thirty or forty. Do try and visit to get an idea.
Bryn Mawr /Haverford actually are a consortium so that they feel larger than Bucknell.
The Claremont college’s are in the same situation but with 5 colleges, so you have about 7,000 students there. It’s in California near LA.
Limiting yourself to colleges above 5,000 will cut out a lot of really great schools. Try to visit a few of them before you decide.